Tyler’s IGOR delivers fresh perspectives on love

In the midst of today’s ever growing musical world, it can be hard to find anything; sometimes people don’t even know where to begin. While this may not show you every song, album, or EP that you’d ever dream of hearing, let this inspire you to search and dive into the infinitely deep hole that is the modern music world.

Today’s piece comes out of Hawthorne, Calif., with an artist by the name of Tyler, The Creator. Tyler, The Creator, who’s real name is Tyler Okonma, is an American rapper and record producer. The album we’ll be covering in this review is IGOR, Tyler’s first album to hit No. 1 in the U.S. Billboard 200. Tyler’s style consists of mostly alternative hip-hop, neo soul and what sounds like a decent amount of R&B inspiration. 

Tyler’s music doesn’t harass its listener with overly heavy bass beats. IGOR sets a really chill atmosphere—something someone could just turn on and vibe to or turn on in their car and just drive around and get lost with. The album IGOR itself is about a bisexual boy named Igor, his male crush, and his crush’s crush on Igor’s ex-girlfriend. Simply looking over the lyrics of each song tells you clearly that this album has a lot of emotions tied to love and breakups, and while it’s definitely not a new topic covered in music, IGOR’s take feels genuine, taking away the dramatization of it all. It’s also important to note that it is always good to see gay representation in music, good representation at that. While Tyler’s sexuality seems to still be very up in the air, connections between not only Igor the character and Tyler, but also what he has said on other albums and other places lead people to draw the conclusions that while he might not be gay, he certainly isn’t straight. 

Going into the music a bit more, each song consists of interesting and enjoyable mixes and beats, and it doesn’t assault the listener with bland loud bass beats. Looking at how artists like MF DOOM and Kanye West inspired Tyler, one can clearly hear that his music has more to it behind its lyrics, which are also amazing, with their ability to tell the story previously mentioned while separately being enjoyable tracks that are good just to listen to even without any form of context.

Looking at the album as a whole then, I went into this album with little to no expectations, and still ended up being pleasantly surprised by IGOR, and this will definitely lead me to checking out more of his music, so this album definitely deserves an 8.5/10.